USERID43

Family: One younger sister, two sons and daughters-in-law, three delightful grandchildren.

Why I volunteer for FFRF: I want to support the organization in addition to simply being a dues-paying member.

What I do as a volunteer: Help around the office with anything that needs doing.

What I like best about it: The fascinating people who work there.

My day job was: Associate director of the University of Wisconsin Press (now happily retired).

Education: Four years of music studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, playing French horn in the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, B.A. in linguistics from Queens College (City University of New York), M.A. in liberal studies from Duke University.

These three words sum me up: Inquisitive, broad-minded, multilingual (fluent in English, French and Hebrew, somewhat less fluent in Macedonian and conversant in German, Spanish and Italian).

How I got where I am today: Life is much about unlearning incorrect ideas. Unfortunately, many people never see this. Few there be who have a sense of their own acculturation.

Person in history I admire: Carl Sagan.

A quotation I like: “For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” (Carl Sagan)

These are a few of my favorite things: Playing piano, reading, volkswalking [noncompetitive, 5K or 10K outdoor walk].

My doubts about religion started: I spent the summer of 1966 working at a church retreat in New Mexico. I was exposed to many sermons. It was there that I began to question the whole scheme.

Ways I promote freethought: I’ve been a Foundation member since 1989. I’m active in a local Unitarian Universalist congregation, Church of the Restoration, so named to indicate the congregation’s desire to bring restoration to the Greenwood District of Tulsa. Greenwood was destroyed in the infamous 1921 race massacre in north Tulsa, where vigilantes took to the skies in aircraft to strafe the helpless black citizens below.

I was instrumental in founding the American Humanist Association chapter in Tulsa in 1988. I later organized an atheist meetup group and stay active in other freethought groups. My next project will be leading a Unitarian Progressive Book Club discussion group, starting with Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States.

Editor’s note: Dan also performed an invaluable service for FFRF several years ago by indexing and binding 10 years’ worth of Freethought Today issues. This is a tremendous resource for research and for the legal staff.

Dan Nerren’s secular invocation

On Thursday, Aug. 30, Dan Nerren treated the Tulsa City Council to a first — the first atheist “invocation” at a Tulsa council meeting.

For months the council had refused to stop praying to open its meetings, then eventually agreed to let previously excluded groups address the council. A local Americans United member asked Dan if he would give a secular address.

“I went to the Internet to see what was out there and soon discovered a secular invocation written by Andrew Lovley of the South Maine Association of Secular Humanists, which he had used to speak to his local governmental body. I adapted Lovley’s words to the Tulsa situation.”

The speaker is also expected to lead the Pledge of Allegiance. A TV reporter noted Dan omitted “under God.”

“Had he been listening carefully, he would have discovered another change I made to the pledge,” said Dan. “I closed the pledge not with ‘with liberty and justice for all’ but with ‘with liberty and justice its goal.’ Liberty and justice have not become a reality for many citizens. My son, watching from his home on the cable access channel, caught my change.”

In what could be called a sad commentary, extra security was in place for the meeting because it was announced beforehand that a godless person was giving the invocation. However, Dan said, “There were no problems, no protesters. Everything went smoothly.”

The invocation:

Let us open our hearts to the welfare of all people in our community by respecting the inherent dignity and worth of each person, and realize that our differences of race, religion and party affiliation are merely superficial. Our common humanity unites us all, and may we recognize that through our interdependence we share a common fate.

In order to achieve the greatest good as citizens of Tulsa, it is important for us to maintain an open mind, and honor and respect the human rights of each other. We should consider the benefit provided by differing perspectives, and be willing to question assumptions that serve only to obstruct our path to progress.

Rather than bowing our heads and closing our eyes in deference, we should open our eyes widely to face the reality that confronts us, without losing sight of our ideals of what we could achieve.

Through the prudent use of reason and compassion, we can ensure the success of this great city.

Lastly, we must remember that in the face of adversity we need not look above for answers, but instead recognize the proven potential within ourselves and in each other to overcome any challenges we face.

When people have a problem with addictions, where can they turn? Most people can name only Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step groups. Most treatments centers and courts refer people to them, but many people have a problem with this.

Though some people manage to take the helpful fellowship and ignore the higher-power/god talk, many of us who reject theism and supernaturalism will forgo help rather than seek a so-called “spiritual awakening” and accept a “higher power,” who, if prayed to in the right way, removes one’s “defects of character.”

Worse, when a person rejects the 12 steps for all of these legitimate reasons, they are accused of being in denial about their problem and receive threats that they will end up in jail, insane or dead if they don’t accept the 12-step solution, as if there is no other path to recovery.

U.S. courts have consistently ruled that 12-step programs are religious for purposes of the First Amendment and forbid their mandated or coerced imposition. Further, research has demonstrated that although participation in these groups is usually helpful, regular attendance and real participation were more likely when the individual’s degree of religiosity was congruent with that of the group (Atkins and Hawdon, 2007).

But accurate information about secular options rarely comes from the underinformed and biased sources often unwillingly providing it. After all, religious movements have a commitment to winning new converts, not providing alternatives.

But secular alternatives do exist.

SMART Recovery (SR) has built its science-based, self-empowering, abstinence program on empirically tested methods. Besides the mutual support found in its almost 800 face-to-face meetings worldwide and daily online meetings, SR offers recovery tools proven effective in research. Its Four Point Program aims at (1) motivation to abstain, coping with cravings, managing problems such as negative emotions, and finding a life with balance. Like AA, lifetime abstinence is the goal, and meetings and help are free. Unlike AA, lifetime abstinence need not require lifetime attendance at meetings.

SMART stands for Self-Management And Recovery Training and is not claiming to be smarter than other groups. It’s recognized by many professional health organizations and governmental agencies, which are listed and linked at smartrecovery.org/linkpage.htm.

SR’s website (smartrecovery.org) provides links to other secular groups, which do not always reciprocate. SR’s tag line is “Discover the Power of Choice.” That includes the choice to quit using and the choice of one’s recovery path.

Other secular recovery

These recovery programs are also secular and free:

Women For Sobriety aims for abstinence and offers volunteers the opportunity and training to become meeting “moderators.” Dr. Jean Kirkpatrick started WFS out of dissatisfaction with AA’s focus on lessening hubris — more of a problem with men, whereas women (and minorities) often need to be empowered rather than further humbled.

Her “New Life” program is based on positive thinking and metaphysics, so it may not meet everyone’s definition of secular, but it’s not a theistic spiritualism. The website (womenforsobriety.org) doesn’t link to other groups or list its meetings (perhaps for security), so you have to contact the central office to find a group.

Secular Organizations for Sobriety (aka Save Our Selves) is affiliated and supported by the Center for Inquiry of Los Angeles, thus affirming its humanist credentials. A dominant figure, James Christopher, started SOS. Meeting leaders are all recovering people.

The program might be described as the 12 steps minus the god stuff. The website (cfiwest.org/sos) provides a list of meetings but no links to other programs.

LifeRing started when Martin Nicolaus, head of SOS publishing, broke with that organization to start a group “not affiliated” with any other (like CFI). He claims that each person creates their own program, but his books provide theory and structure. Volunteer “conveners” are all recovering people. The website (lifering.org) lists meetings but does not link to other groups.

Moderation Management, unlike all the other groups, is not abstinence-based. The secular, science-based program is not for alcohol-dependents (alcoholics). MM provides safer responsible drinking limits and guidelines. It’s a 9-step program to help people cut down or quit, and either outcome is considered a success.

Volunteers include people who have never had an alcohol problem. The website (moderation.org) lists live and online meetings and links to other programs.

For the “never addicted” reader who wants to help, SMART Recovery volunteers include both never-addicted and recovering people, all of whom receive training in facilitating meetings.

Rational Recovery is often mistakenly offered as a secular alternative to AA, but RR stopped offering free self-help meetings in the mid-1990s. It’s a for-profit company that sells seminars, DVDs and some fine secular self-help books, but it’s not a self-help group.

Why am I interested in providing secular options?

My step-grandfather, Jacob Benjamin, who wrote “Did Jesus Ever Live or Is Christianity Founded Upon A Myth?” under the pseudonym Historicus, was a devout atheist and science-minded for his time, but he engaged in secret maintenance drinking during the day and a family-destroying binge every night. He ruined my mother’s life and his own, which revealed to me a societal need.

I believe he might have been helped if there had been a secular alternative available back then. It is my hope that with this information more people in our FFRF and related communities will support and volunteer to help offer these secular options.

Dr. Steinberger, an FFRF Life Member, is a licensed psychologist. He holds the Certificate of Proficiency in the Treatment of Alcohol and Other Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders from the American Psychological Association and is a past member of the SMART Recovery board of directors. He’s the editor/author of The SMART Recovery Handbook(2nd Ed., 2004) and is a volunteer adviser to SMART. He specializes in science-based, secular approaches to addiction treatment.

In the fall of 2011, after hearing one too many invocations praising Jesus at our City Council meeting in Portage, Mich., I decided to do something about it.

I was still thinking about it when Dan Barker spoke at a Center for Inquiry event in Grand Rapids. Afterward, as Dan was signing my copy of Godless, I mentioned it to him. He encouraged me to address the issue with the council.

When I said that I had tried without success to find a “secular leader” to give a secular invocation, Dan suggested that I offer to do it myself. So, in my letter to the council, I did make that offer. They did not address it at the next meeting, but it was on the agenda for the one after that, but unfortunately I was out of town on business and couldn’t attend.

I watched the video later and was told by the city clerk that I would be scheduled to give a secular invocation at a later date. (In November, I received a copy of the 2012 invocation schedule which included my name for a July meeting, with a form letter thanking me for serving the community by participating in the process).

When I attended the next meeting and thanked them for considering the matter, one council member came up to thank me for bringing it up, saying she thought on occasion that the invocations went too far.

It was interesting to watch the video of the council’s discussion about my letter. The city attorney said that he felt the council was not violating any law. One council member asked if there were invocation guidelines given to people, for example, to avoid overly sectarian language. The attorney advised the council against doing that, fearing it would become de facto policy and open the city up to a lawsuit for violating it later.

Here is the text of my invocation:

“I represent no congregation or denomination. But I appreciate the invitation to give this invocation on behalf of the nonbelievers in our city, which includes those who do not subscribe to any particular religious sect and those who deny the existence of a god altogether.

It can be easy to forget or pretend that we don’t exist because we are a small minority, but we are a rapidly growing minority, so we do appreciate the chance to get our seat at the table.

We include doctors, lawyers, teachers and people of all walks of life who live moral lives and contribute to the welfare of our community. As a veteran, I can even assure you that there are indeed atheists in foxholes. With that said, thank you again for the opportunity.

And so, while I would prefer that the practice of invocations be discontinued, I recognize that that is unlikely to happen here in the near future, so I thank you again for this opportunity to represent a minority viewpoint.

And so, without appealing to a higher power which I do not believe exists, I ask each one of you to put forth your best effort to listen intently, resolve differences, find common ground and advance the progress and prosperity of our community.

Because with or without prayer, that’s what needs to be done, and prayers don’t pay the bills, or maintain the roads, or do any of the work that this council and our city manager do so effectively on our behalf. As human beings, all we can do is use the talents and wisdom which nature, our education and experience have given us to overcome the challenges we face.

And when the task before you is difficult, I ask that you not to look upward for guidance from some higher power which is most likely an outgrowth of our own fear of mortality, but instead look inward to your own sense of morality and reason, and also look outward to the members of this community who come forward to lend their support and assistance.

Only through a spirit of cooperation and unity can we continue to make the city of Portage such a wonderful place to live, work, and raise our families.

In closing, it’s important to remember that you don’t need a god to hope, to care, to love or to live. And we don’t need one to help conduct city business.

Thank you.

During the meeting, the council approved four churches as polling places (out of 21 precincts). I told the council I opposed “forcing citizens to enter a house of worship to exercise their most cherished democratic right.” I noted studies that have shown a link between how people vote and where they vote.

After the meeting, a council members thanked me for coming and said she was going to share the video with her atheist friend. She asked about alternative voting locations. The mayor and others joined in and we had a nice discussion. They gently suggested that, having brought it up, I should be willing to help find a solution. I’m still working on that.

Two interesting things happened at the next meeting two weeks later. Before the meeting, the mayor took the Catholic priest scheduled to give the invocation aside and appeared to ask him to avoid sectarian language (which he avoided). I’m not sure if the mayor did that because he saw me there or not, but I found it encouraging.

Then, as I was leaving, a man asked to speak with me. (He was a police detective, I learned during the conversation. City policy is to have at least one officer at every meeting.) He said he found my invocation at the previous meeting offensive. He felt that I had insulted religion in general and Christianity in particular.

We had an interesting discussion, which brought out all the same tired old arguments like “the minority forcing the majority to accept their position.” I shot them all down. After about 10 minutes, he said we would never agree but said he felt better talking about it.

FFRF member Tim Earl was born and raised in Detroit by a non-practicing Protestant father and a “pre-Vatican II” Catholic mother and attended Catholic schools K-12, including an all-male Christian Brothers high school. He served in the Navy from 1996 to 2004, including service as chief engineer of the destroyer USS Fletcher in the opening months of the 2003 Iraq War.

“Part of what finally pushed me over the edge to nonbelief was being exposed to Islam firsthand while in the Middle East. Seeing how passionate these people were about their beliefs, I started thinking about the mutual exclusivity of the world’s major religions. I finally finished this journey of self-discovery when I read The God Delusion. I realized that I was indeed an atheist and that there was nothing wrong with that. When I told my wife, a secular Jew who had never really discussed religion with me, she said, “It’s about time. Welcome to the club.” We now raise our two daughters, ages 4 and 7, with no religious tradition.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has once again qualified for inclusion in the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC).

The CFC is the only officially sanctioned program for soliciting federal government employees on behalf of charitable organizations. The CFC conducts annual campaigns in the workplace and allows federal employees to make donations through payroll deductions or other forms of payment to an approved list of charities. It’s part of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

FFRF, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, was first included on the CFC list of eligible charities in 2008. “Federal workers had contacted the Foundation in the past, noting the many religious charities on the listing, and wishing there were a nontheist alternative,” said Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.

“We’re delighted to announce now again in 2012 that our activities throughout the United States, including the many scholarships we grant students, helped FFRF meet the rigorous eligibility criteria,” Gaylor said.

To FFRF’s knowledge, it’s the only freethought group on the list, which includes hundreds of religious groups. All dues and donations are deductible for income-tax purposes.

“Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc.” will appear in the listing of “National/International Independent Organizations” that’s published in each local campaign charity list in the early fall.

The solicitation period for 2012 campaign donations is Sept. 1 through Dec. 15. Deadlines vary by region. The CFC code that donors will use to designate their contribution to FFRF is 32519.

CFC donors contributed more than $63,000 to FFRF in 2010 and more than $88,000 in 2011.

Another way to give is via matching grant donations, which have become a significant boost to FFRF in recent years. Many companies offer to match (fully or a percentage of) their employees’ donations to charitable nonprofits. These matches multiply the impact of the initial donation to further FFRF’s goals.

Gaylor added, “It is recommended that all CFC donors check the box to include their name and mailing address (in addition to your email) with the donation. Donors will receive an acknowledgment from FFRF when we receive pledge notification (throughout the year). If you do not receive that acknowledgment, please contact FFRF to be sure we have been given your name and information about your pledge.”

Charity Navigator gives FFRF its highest rating of four stars, which means “exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in its cause.”

Name: R. Kelly Wagner (the R stands for Rebecca Ann, or possibly for Robot if one happens to be an Asimov fan).

Where I live: Columbia, Md.

Where and when I was born: In Chicago, 50-“mumble” years ago, raised on Long Island around Levittown.

Family: Oh heavens, too many siblings to mention, most of whom are Catholic. The one person I would like to mention would be my late husband, Steve Harsch, who was also an FFRF member until his death in 2010. No kids, lots of pets.

Occupation: Before I retired, I worked as a CPA doing taxes in the 1980s, then spent 15 years as a financial analyst for the Texas Department of Insurance, doing solvency monitoring of property-casualty companies, which was a lot more fun than it sounds to most people. I taught introductory computer science courses at St. Edward’s University in Austin for six years.

How I got where I am today: Let’s not start too early, but let’s go with getting diagnosed with congestive heart failure in December 2002 and my husband and I deciding to move someplace closer to my family, with better medical care and more culture in 2005. Maryland suited our politics much better than Texas ever did (though Steve was born there and I lived there for 24 years), and it’s a lot easier to be an atheist here than it ever was in Texas. As for all the stuff prior to that, I’d say the short answer is whim and random turns of fate!

Person in history I admire and why: Has Isaac Asimov been dead long enough [1992] to count as history? And do I even need to explain why?

A quotation I like: “Do not let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you must, with the same weapons of reason that today arm you against the present.” (Marcus Aurelius)

These are a few of my favorite things: Luxury knitting yarns, small pets (especially guinea pigs), playing the saxophone in community bands, sleeping in till noon on Sundays, autumn leaves, public libraries, the hope for universal health care and the Udvar-Hazy Center (part of the Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum, a great example of science and reason).

These are not: The guy at the supermarket who tried to tell me about Jesus last week; slow progress on new treatments for chronic illnesses; long waiting lists at the library for books I want to read right now; people who brag about being bad at math; people who “don’t believe in” vaccinations (and people who don’t believe in paying for public schools and libraries and recreation centers, but then it sounds as though I dislike all libertarians, and I’ve met a few that I do like).

My doubts about religion started: When I was 15. My family was Catholic, and I was depressed, and the oppressiveness of a god who would deliberately inflict depression on someone, and a religion that considers women second-class, started to weigh on me.

Why I’m a freethinker: Getting rid of organized religion was a start on lifting my depression; getting rid of the idea of gods who can do good things for human lives but arbitrarily, capriciously, and cruelly choose not to, really gave me a boost. Life is so much easier to explain, and so much less cruel, once we know that evil is the acts of humans only, and that prayers don’t fix it, only good works by other humans do.

It’s like free speech: The answer to speech you don’t like is more free speech; the answer to religion is more freethought.

Ways I promote freethought: I fill in “militant atheist” as my religion on forms that ask. I openly discuss my atheist views with anyone who asks. I wear my “Friendly Neighborhood Atheist” T-shirt, and I’m working on a piece of music for concert band that will be called “Freethinkers’ March.” When it’s done and I get one of my community bands to play it, you’ll get a recording of it and rights to it — next spring, with any luck!

In early October, the Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights notified FFRF’s local attorney Katherine Godin that “a Preliminary Investigating Commissioner carefully reviewed and considered the information gathered during the course of the investigation by members of the Commission staff. The Commissioner has determined that there is ‘probable cause’ to believe that the respondents have violated the Rhode Island Hotels and Public Places Act. . .”

FFRF Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Markert filed a complaint in January after four florists refused its order of flowers to congratulate Jessica Ahlquist, the Cranston, R.I., teen who had just won a major ruling in her favor by a federal judge, who agreed a prayer banner in her high school’s auditorium was unconstitutional. FFRF had to contract for the services from a Connecticut florist in order to get the flowers delivered. FFRF filed the complaint against two of the Cranston florists.

FFRF alleges “illegal discrimination based on religion” for failure to fill the order. Markert cited the state law that says it’s unlawful for a place of accommodation to deny services “on account of religion.”

The commission’s preliminary finding further states, “Since the finding of probable cause, the parties [FFRF, Twins Florist and Flowers by Santilli] have begun conciliation endeavors. Should the parties not come to an agreement or settlement, the Commission will order a hearing to determine whether the statute was violated. Either party also has a right to request a transfer of the case to Superior Court.”

We believe the best way to ensure religious freedom is to protect all religious references and symbols; including those on public buildings, lands, or documents. This includes prayer in public schools, thanking God in a graduation speech, and religious symbols being placed on public property during their appropriate holiday season. . . BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Republican Party of Wisconsin . . . believes that school boards should have discretion as to the teaching of intelligent design within their districts.

Wisconsin GOP platform

wisgop.org, 5-13-12

Somehow or another there’s this, ya know, steel wall, this iron curtain or whatever you want to call it, between the church and people of faith, and this separation of church and state is just false on its face. We have a biblical responsibility to be involved in the public arena proclaiming God’s truth.

A 10-foot-tall Buddhist stupa was removed in September from New Mexico’s Petroglyph National Monument after an opinion from the Department of Interior’s solicitor general that it endorsed religion.

The agency bought the stupa, a mound-like structure housing relics, when it acquired park land in 1990. It will be donated to the Buddhist community in Albuquerque.

School avoids prayer ban by singing

Republican state Rep. Justin Harris told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Sept. 29 that in order to get around a ban on religion in state-funded preschools, he will have children sing prayers at the school he operates through Growing God’s Kingdom in West Fork, Ark.

A new rule, which went into effect Oct. 26, allows religious music under certain circumstances. Records show Growing God’s Kingdom has received $2.6 million from the state since 2005.

No coach-led prayer, says Portales, N.M.

Coach-led prayers will not be allowed in Portales, N.M., city league sports, the Portales News-Tribune reported Sept. 13.

League Director Mike Doerr told coaches he’s watched them leading prayers. “We have multiple ethnicities, nationalities and religious backgrounds involved in our city leagues. As much freedom as everyone has to express religious views, we must have the courtesy to respect the views of others.”

Players still have the freedom to pray or observe a moment of silence at practices and games, Doerr said.

Delaware vote for Psalm 23 is 3-2

The Sussex County Council, Georgetown, Del., voted 3-2 on Sept. 11 to substitute Psalm 23 for the Lord’s Prayer to open meetings.

Four county residents had sued to stop the Lord’s Prayer. U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark ruled in May that the plaintiffs would likely win the case because use of a Protestant version of the prayer “constitutes government endorsement of the Christian faith.”

County attorney J. Scott Shannon explained the perceived legal difference to the Sussex Countian: “Because The Lord’s Prayer is from the New Testament, the judge in this case found that it was specifically Christian and therefore not permitted under the Constitution. Psalm 23, on the other hand, is a recognized prayer in Judaism and Christianity and also is acknowledged in Islam, so it meets the Supreme Court’s test.”

2 of 3 Pussy Riot sentences upheld

One member of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot had her sentence overturned by a Moscow appeals court Oct. 10, but the court upheld two of her bandmates’ sentences for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.”

Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, was freed after serving six months. She and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Maria Alyokhina, 24, were sentenced to two years in August for a “punk prayer” on the altar of the city’s main cathedral. The prayer asked the Blessed Virgin to rid Russia of Vladimir Putin.

Defense lawyer Mark Feigin told Reuters the only difference was Samutsevich spent 15 seconds at the altar compared to 45 seconds for his clients.

“We did not want to offend believers,” Alyokhina told the court. “We came to the cathedral to speak out against the merger between spiritual figures and the political elite of our country.”

Wisconsin board votes against cross logo

The combined Catholic and public school Messwood football team in Shorewood, Wis., replaced a religious logo on players’ helmets after the Shorewood School Board on Oct. 9 unanimously agreed after a district parent complained to the district that a Christian cross on the logo violated separation of state and church.

The new logo has “2012 PLAYOFFS” in red set on a blue football and replaces the old one. The Catholic Messmer High School and the public Shorewood High School have co-oped in football for 12 seasons.

“It’s clearly a Christian cross,” board member Michael Mishlove said. “I think it’s inappropriate to have on a uniform or any sort of school-authorized clothing, as I think it could be viewed as an endorsement,” reported Shorewood Now.

“We are not happy about it,” Brother Bob Smith, Messmer president, told WTMJ Radio. He called the decision “hurtful for the team.”

Pastor banned from Ind. school lunchroom

The Associated Press reported Oct. 20 that the Southwest Allen County School District, Fort Wayne, Ind., has banned a youth pastor from addressing students in the lunchroom.

It announced the policy less than an hour after John and Linda Buchanan, whose 11-year-old daughter attends Summit Middle School, sued in U.S. District Court. The family is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

The minister, from a nondenominational church called The Chapel, was allowed to hand out materials and move from table to table, talking with children, the claim stated.

Linda Buchanan, 44, said her daughter brought home religious anti-abortion literature. “We’re not a bunch of heathens,” she said. “We’re not anti-religion; we’re anti-religion in public school.”

The U.S. for the first time ever does not have an adult Protestant majority, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The percentage of Protestants has fallen to 48%.

Contributing to the decline, The Associated Press reported Oct. 9, is the fact that about 20% of adult Americans say they have no religious affiliation. That’s up 5% from five years ago.

According to Pew, the category includes people who say they pray or consider themselves spiritual but not religious. “Still, Pew found overall that most of the unaffiliated aren’t actively seeking another religious home, indicating that their ties with organized religion are permanently broken, AP reported.

In 2007, 60% of people who said they seldom or never attended religious services still identified themselves as part of a particular religious tradition. In 2012, that statistic fell to 50%, according to the Pew report.

Pew predicts more growth in “nones,” saying that one-third of adults under age 30 have no religious affiliation, compared to 9% of those 65 and older.

Man kills rather than spoil his child

Benjamin Edetanlen, sentenced to 18 years in prison Oct. 11 in DeKalb County, Ga., for killing his 5-month-old son and beating his two other children in 2004, blamed the bible.

Assistant District Attorney Dalia Racine told the court that “The defendant stated that he disciplined the children according to the Book of Proverbs in the bible.”

The Catholic Church in Italy will be forced to pay taxes starting in 2013 after the European Union pressured the government to pass a law stripping the church of its property tax exemption, La Repubblica daily newspaper reported Oct. 12.

Historically, all church property, even if used commercially, (for a bed and breakfast with a chapel in it, for example) has been tax-exempt.

The move will net estimated annual revenues of 500 million to 2 billion euros.

Einstein ‘God’ letter sells for $3 million

A handwritten letter in which Albert Einstein questioned the existence of God sold for $3,000,000,100 to an anonymous bidder on eBay. The minimum acceptable bid was $3 million for the online auction held Oct. 8-18. Only two bids were received.

Einstein wrote the so-called “God letter” in German on Princeton University stationery, a year before he died in 1955. It said, in part, “The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can (for me) change this.”

The letter and envelope last sold in 2008 for $404,000.

Ahlquist not buffaloed by family institute

Rhode Island freethought activist Jessica Ahlquist, 17, spoke Sept. 18 at York High School in Elmhurst and at two other Illinois high schools despite pressure from the Illinois Family Institute to get schools to cancel her speeches during Constitution Week events.

FFRF sent an Action Alert to members Sept. 17 urging their support of Ahlquist’s efforts to bolster the First Amendment.

The Elmhurst Patch reported students were eager to ask her questions. “Why did it bother you so much? Couldn’t you just look away?” one student asked.

“Because it’s illegal,” Ahlquist said. “Because it’s my right and I feel strongly about my rights and I feel other people should too.”

Charles Ovando, social sciences division chairman, said the discussion was more about Ahlquist being threatened, which was a good message for students to hear.

“When you talk about exercising your constitutional rights, that sometimes comes at a cost. It’s not just a joy ride to speak up.”

Former Tiller clinic reopening in Kansas

The Wichita, Kan., clinic formerly operated by the murdered Dr. George Tiller has been bought by an abortion-rights group and will reopen as a family and women’s health center that will offer abortions and other services.

Julie Burkhart, executive director of Trust Women Foundation Inc., said the nonprofit bought the clinic in August. An attorney for Tiller’s widow, Jeanne, confirmed the sale Sept. 26 to The Associated Press.

The state has been without abortion services except for the Kansas City area since religious zealot Scott Roeder fatally shot Tiller in church, where he was ushering, in 2009. Tiller was wearing body armor because of death threats but was shot in the head.

Property tax records online listed the property’s appraised value at $734,100. Burkhart said she was unsure when the clinic would open. “Thousands of women right now have to travel three hours-plus for medical services. It’s a burden on women. It’s a burden on women’s families.”

Scouts forced to open ‘perversion files’

About 14,500 pages of Boy Scouts of America detailing sex-abuse allegations from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s were made public Oct. 18 by an Oregon court, including internal reports of alleged child molestations by more than 1,200 U.S. scoutmasters and other adult volunteers. The records, formally called the Ineligible Volunteer Files but commonly known as “the perversion files,” were submitted as evidence in a 2010 lawsuit.

Kelly Clark, a Portland attorney who won the landmark 2010 suit, told The Associated Press that the documents show that even though the Scouts have been collecting the files nearly since the Boy Scouts’ founding in 1910, the organization failed to use them to protect boys from pedophiles.

The decades-long cover-up is being compared to the failure of churches, the Catholic Church in particular, to report sex abuse allegations to police. In fact, many Scouting troops were sponsored by and met in churches. Pastors were leaders in some instances.

Religious Right groups’ coffers overflow

The top 10 Religious Right groups have total revenues of $1.177 billion, according to a new study from Americans United for Separation of Church and State. [FFRF’s annual budget is less than $2 million.]

The revenues, in parentheses, come from official IRS filings and other reliable sources.

A British hospital in Birmingham is treating Malala Yousufzai, a 15-year-old Pakistani girl shot in the head on a school bus Oct. 9 by the Taliban in Mingora in retaliation for championing education for girls. She was alert after surgery and is expected to live but the extent of her recovery is uncertain. Another girl was slightly injured in the attack.

A Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said the girl’s activism needed to be stopped: “This was a new chapter of obscenity, and we have to finish this chapter.”

Malala received Pakistan’s first National Peace Award in 2009 for publicizing violence by hardline Islamists against education, The Guardian reported.

Another girl, 17-year-old Hina Khan, has received Taliban death threats and has had a red cross painted on her family’s home twice because of her views on female education.

Scandal topples D’Souza at Christian school

Dinesh D’Souza’s conservative Christian “family values” reputation took a big hit in past weeks amid rumors the married 51-year-old was having an affair with a woman in her late 20s. The shoe dropped Oct. 18, when he resigned as president of King’s College, a small Christian university in Manhattan, reported The New York Times.

The school announced the resignation two days after a Christian magazine reported he had checked into a South Carolina motel with a woman he introduced as his fiancée. The magazine reported he filed for divorce the same day its reporter contacted him. D’Souza and his wife Dixie, 44, live in southern California and have one daughter.

He’s also the director and co-producer of the conservative documentary currently in theaters, “2016: Obama’s America.”

His fiancée, Denise Odie Joseph II, 29, is also married and has written extensively about the importance of so-called family values.

Mothers ‘maimed and forgotten’ in Ireland

“The imperative to bear as many children as possible crippled hundreds of Irishwomen,” Marie O’Connor writes in a column titled “The maimed and forgotten mothers” in The Irish Times. Catholic hospitals encouraged doctors to treat difficult childbirths with a symphysiotomy, a procedure that severs the pelvic joint, instead of doing a caesarean section.

According to O’Connor, the church preferred the symphysiotomy because it could widen the pelvis, “enabling an unlimited number of vaginal deliveries.

“But when it went wrong, which was often, the women suffered chronic pain and incontinence, and many could barely walk. . . . Doctors in every other Western country shunned the operation, but in Ireland it was performed on some 1,500 women between 1944 and 2005. About 200 victims survive today, most of them disabled. Yet they can’t seek redress in the courts, because it only recently became public that these operations were unnecessary, long after the statute of limitations expired.”